Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. I like the costume aspect, but the whole scary aspect plus greedy candy hoarding puts it low on my holiday list. With Hannah getting older, Brett and I had to decide if we even wanted to “do” Halloween, and if we did what it would look like. We tried to think of how we could make it as positive as possible and use the opportunity to encourage others.
This may look different for use every year, but I wanted to share what we did this year (and cute pics of course). The day before Halloween, my friend Meghan and I decided to create “matching” costumes for Hannah and Cody. Many ideas were thrown around, but most involved trips to the craft store and too much time (in my opinion). We settled on Mary and Joseph. It might come across as us having our holidays confused or trying to over-Christianize Halloween, but really it was because Meghan was able to raid her fabric scrap stash and with a few swipes of the scissors and some yarn – voila, costumes!

On Halloween, Meghan and I loaded the kids up (four total now, wow!) and went to a nursing home that said they were offering trick-or-treating in the afternoon. This sounded great because afternoon is much better than evening for preschoolers. We also thought this would be a good way to encourage others.
Our time at the nursing home was brief because it was set up a little awkwardly, and some of the residents were a little confused and got mad when the kids asked for their candy. Another little girl had a meltdown because she wanted to take baby Jesus away from Hannah. But Cody and Hannah were very cute and came away very excited about their few little Tootsie Rolls. Whatever ended up in the classic plastic pumpkin was dubbed “trickertreats” which makes sense at this stage.
Halloween evening, Joseph was not available, so Hannah dressed in a cute nurse outfit she recently received. (sorry about the weird pics, I’m still figuring out the WordPress app)

Our street did not have a lot of lights on, so Brett took her to four houses and she came home happy with a very appropriate amount of candy. She was also happy that several kids came by our house before she went to bed and she was able to generously pass out our candy at the door. She even insisted that the parents take candy.
Violet slept through the whole thing, but we woke her up to take some pictures with the good camera. I’ll try to post those soon.
So that was our Halloween – the first one Hannah will really remember, and we hopefully we were able to fill it with fun, encouragement, sharing and, of course, trickertreats.

If I had more energy, I’d make these into separate posts with fun pics. But you get bullet points instead.

– Bye to Bingley – In an attempt to simplify our life in preparation for family growth, we have decided to re-home the dogs. My parents graciously offered to welcome Bingley as a friend for their dog Rocky, so we took him up with us on our Kansas trip. We are getting good reports about the adventures of Bingley and Rocky. It was sad to say goodbye, but we know he is happy with a huge yard and a friend. We are still looking for a new home for Leia; let us know if you are interested.

– New wheels – We loved our Honda Pilot, but the automatic sliding doors of the minivan lured us to the official family vehicle. It is a 2007 Honda Odyssey, and we are in love! Good thing since I’ll probably be driving a minivan for the next 20 years or so.

– Baby update – I’m now 26 weeks along, finishing up the second trimester. The pregnancy tracker iPhone app says that my baby this week is the size of a cucumber, 15 inches long and 2.2 lbs. My mom has pulled some mammoth produce from her garden, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a 15 inch, 2 pound cucumber. Anyway, baby girl remains quite active, and I’m feeling pretty good, just tired.

– Big girl bed – The crib has been moved into the guest room which is the new nursery, and Hannah has a big girl bed. We got a set of bunk beds from Ikea but only assembled the frame and bottom bed. She is very proud of her new bed, but bedtimes have been rough as she does not enjoy actually staying in her bed.

– Ballet class – I am still taking the adult ballet class I joined in January. The classes continue through the summer, and I am doing as much as I can with my growing baby bump. My teacher says my grand battements are still just as high as the 20-year-olds in my class, woohoo! We’ll see how the third trimester goes.

– Weekend away – Brett and I will be attending a “Food and Family” conference in San Antonio in a couple weeks. We are excited about the topics (nutrition, meal planning on a budget, sustainable farming, hospitality, Biblical feasting, etc) and the chance to hang out on the Riverwalk for a few days. I’ll definitely be doing a big recap when we return.

– Down with diapers – I would now consider Hannah to be potty-trained, yay! I’m not one of those moms to include all the details, but everyone in the house is very excited to only deal with diapers for sleeping. What a big girl! Now I’m going to enjoy a 3-month break from regular diaper changes.

And to answer any possible questions: No, we don’t have a name for the baby yet, and even if we did we wouldn’t tell. Yes, it is ridiculously hot. Yes, I will post pictures of the new bedroom arrangements when they are finished. No, we haven’t watched “Downton Abbey” yet, but it’s on our to-do list.